The 2021 that has just ended has seen the strengthening of some purchasing trends born during the pandemic: the preference given to local products, the reduction in meat consumption and the growth in fruit and vegetable consumption and the increasing attention of consumers to sustainability.
What awaits us in 2022?
According to a research recently carried out by Tiendeo and based on the forecasts of Wired in 2022, the main purchasing trends observed in 2021 will be confirmed and new ones linked to dematerialization and price saving will be added, as follows:
Local produce will continue to be preferred over imported ones, and fruit and vegetables will continue to fill shopping carts.
Consumers’ attention to sustainability will strengthen in 2022 and brands will be judged on a double criterion: the quality of the product and the ease of disposing of the packaging.
But, in 2022, even more attention will be paid to promotions, especially for those products that have undergone significant price increases such as cured meats, eggs and meat.
The consumer will increasingly act in on-life mode, increasingly canceling the distinction between “physical” and “digital”, the consumer will therefore be increasingly looking for an integration between the online and offline experience lived in the physical store.
The consumer purchase path will become increasingly hybrid and a fundamental part will be played by social networks. In recent years, social media have acquired more and more importance in corporate strategies, mainly as a communication channel. In 2022, however, social media will also be confirmed as a sales channel, the innovative trend of social commerce will definitively affirm itself, the possibility of purchasing products and services through social media.
Furthermore, three must-haves emerge from a recent survey carried out by Klarma that will establish themselves in 2022, especially among high-end brands:
The flexibility of payments, 79% of consumers, in fact, declare that they prefer the purchase of high-end items in installments. In particular, millennials (86%) and Gen Z (77%) consider the availability of flexible and interest-free payment options to be an added value in the purchase of high-end products.
The ability to innovate, which will be a critical element of evaluation during the purchase phase in 89% of cases.
Fast delivery, which will be a must for e-commerce platforms, since there is a progressive reduction in the maximum time that the consumer is willing to wait for the receipt of products: 44% of buyers say they are willing to wait for delivery a maximum time of only 2 days.
